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Multiple-Meaning Words

A multiple-meaning word is spelled and said the same way but means different things: a bat flies at night, and you hit a ball with a bat. Context is the only clue, which is why these words are such good reading practice.

Here are 120 multiple-meaning words from past ClueBy puzzles, each with a real example sentence for every meaning. Use them as a reference, or make a printable worksheet below.

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Students read each sentence and write the missing word. Every word appears in several sentences, each time with a different meaning.

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Multiple-Meaning Words

Name: ____________________Date: __________

Write the missing word in each sentence. Each word is used more than once, with a different meaning each time.

  1. A university ________________ is the ticket to a successful career.
  2. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  3. The supermarket has a large ________________ of merchandise.
  4. I cannot ________________ this tree. It's too high.
  5. To what ________________ are you interested in baseball?
  6. In my city, the temperature is one ________________ above zero.
  7. Do not ________________ roses in the fall.
  8. I had a bad ________________ and was in bed for a week.
  9. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  10. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  11. Its rival in the ________________ War, the Soviet Union, exploited this at the time.
  12. A ________________ is just a dried plum.
  13. Use a drill to ________________ a hole in the wall.
  14. The water is too ________________.
  15. The ________________ market has crashed.
  16. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  17. Wood does not conduct electric ________________.
  18. She ________________ him three sons and a daughter.
  19. What's the difference between broth and ________________?
  20. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  21. Let us try to swim against the ________________.
  22. Doesn't taking care of babies ________________ you?
  23. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.
  24. Here is a list of ________________ job openings.

Sentences from ClueBy, Tatoeba (CC BY 2.0 FR) and Common Voice (CC0). clueby.com

Answer key

  1. degree — from a university
  2. clip — a video
  3. stock — goods
  4. prune — to trim
  5. degree — an amount
  6. degree — temperature
  7. prune — to trim
  8. cold — an illness
  9. clip — to cut
  10. bat — in an idiom
  11. cold — the Cold War
  12. prune — the fruit
  13. bore — to drill
  14. cold — not warm
  15. stock — shares
  16. bat — the animal
  17. current — electric
  18. bore — gave birth
  19. stock — a soup base
  20. clip — for paper
  21. current — of water
  22. bore — to tire
  23. bat — for baseball
  24. current — happening now

Multiple-meaning words list

Tick up to 10 words to build a worksheet with just those words.

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Frequently asked questions

What are multiple-meaning words?

Words with the same spelling and pronunciation but more than one meaning, like bark (of a dog or of a tree) or bank (for money or of a river). You can only tell which meaning is meant from the rest of the sentence.

Are multiple-meaning words the same as homonyms?

Mostly, yes. Teachers often use "multiple-meaning words" and "homonyms" for the same idea. Homophones are different: they sound alike but are spelled differently, like flour and flower.

Are the worksheets free?

Yes. Make and print as many as you like for home or classroom use. Each sheet has its own link, so you can print the same one again.

Where do the words come from?

From past ClueBy puzzles, a daily game where you sort twelve sentences by their missing word. A new puzzle every day adds four more words to this list.

Sentences from ClueBy, Tatoeba (CC BY 2.0 FR) and Common Voice (CC0). clueby.com